Agro-Ecological Assessments for National Planning in Kenya: Database Structure for District Analysis

The database structure for agro-ecological land resources assessment for development planning in Kenya comprises two broad categories of data: the Land Resources Inventory (LRI) and socio-economic data or statistics. Socio-economic data, compiled primarily from Kenyan sources, are records of actual population, land use, crop production, livestock population, farming inputs, food, demand, etc. The agro-ecological zones (AEZ) methodology utilizes the LRI to assess, for a given level of input, all feasible agricultural land use options as well as expected production of relevant and agro-ecologically feasible cropping activities. With the benefit of socio-economic parameters which are used to define constraints, targets, production and consumption levels for planning objectives, optimal resource allocation schemes corresponding to the desired objectives can be derived. The administrative districts of Kenya cover a wide range of physical conditions and socioeconomic characteristics. It has been necessary, therefore, as part of the update of the socioeconomic database for Kenya to disaggregate socioeconomic data, where possible, at the district level. This update includes also new estimates of socio-economic parameters that will facilitate analysis at the district level. These new estimates and disaggregation represent certain methodological improvements in the application of the AEZ methodology to development planning in Kenya

An economic analysis of potential impacts of climate change in Egypt

Projections of climate impacts on crop yields simulated for different General Circulation Model (GCM) scenarios are used, in a recursively dynamic general equilibrium framework, to account for potential economy-wide impacts of climate change in Egypt. Comparing these impact projections to those obtained under a reference, business-as-usual, scenario assuming some moderate changes in the political, economic or technological spheres, indicates that global warming has potentially negative effects. The analysis is based on a global assessment of potential climate change-induced variations in world commodity production and trade. The Egyptian agricultural sector, and the non-agricultural sector to a lesser extent, are projected to be increasingly less self-sufficient. Specific potential adverse impacts are identified. The simulation results show that high-cost adaptation measures involving major changes in the agricultural system and practices may mitigate these adverse impacts. Stimulating economic development of the rural areas and creating appropriate conditions for effective diffusion and development of technologies — particularly for the agricultural sector — would seem a desirable strategy. Perhaps, more importantly, the simulation results show that the assumption of exogenously determined technological progress may be inappropriate, in which case the potential adverse impacts of a future warming of the global climate are likely to be fewer than is indicated in this study — if prevailing constraints on productivity growth in the major food and feed grains are ‘released’ by endogenous advances in technology